Resources in this collection

"This made me think about all the chatter on Twitter and Facebook about the #Ferguson verdict. I have to say that I feel really badly that my friends of color feel hurt and angry about the white reaction to this verdict. I wish I could do more. ..." Molly Robbins

Christopher Rodgers shares the recorded experience of self-identified Black male educators: "Through impassioned dialogue, we landed on what we all felt to be a generative inquiry into our motivations to become educators, recognizing the overwhelming number of educators who leave the classroom in their first five years. We investigated the interrelatedness between what brought us into teaching and why we continue to stay in teaching."

"In response to the State of Emergency, I would like to call for a State of Immediate Urgency to meet the grieving, mourning, and righteous rage within the streets of Ferguson with a searching for our collective humanity within all the systems of American so-called authority. As the National Guard of Missouri descends upon the Ferguson streets, I call for every boot on the ground to stop, think, and reflect"

In this mission on Youth Voices students are invited to choose a name from our list of 25 Stories on Wikipedia (Step 2), then read and annotate the story and do further research. Next, write a poem to remember that person, using both your imagination and the facts. Use "Night, for Henry Dumas" and "41 Bullets Off-Broadway" as model texts. Post your poem as a discussion on Youth Voices, and comment on other students' "Black Lives Matter" poems.

"As St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch stepped to the microphone on the evening of Nov. 24 to announce the grand jury’s decision about the fate of Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, I found myself glued simultaneously to my laptop and the television set."

Sam Reed's recounting of Dr. James Peterson's presentation includes this:
In talking about schools, he noted that many are de facto segregated and lacking a diverse teaching staff. They could be seen as “mini-Fergusons,” he said. At Philadelphia's Bartram High School, for instance, the student population is predominantly Black, but the teaching staff is mostly White. But more important than their race or ethnic backgrounds, he noted, teachers should be culturally competent to teach and serve in challenging school environments.

Teaching in a Movement for Justice

In a Washington Post interview (25 Dec. 2014), he compares the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March with the recent Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter protests: “What is happening is not like a firecracker where you just come and pop off and make a lot of noise, and you’re gone,” Lewis said. “It’s more like a pilot light that continues to burn.”

This collection asks: What's the pilot light in our curriculum that helps students to connect around important issues of race and justice in our time?

Another way to ask this question: How do we build curriculum, rituals, tools, and skills in modular, open, inspiring ways that will give students the permission to follow their passions, yet also invites them to go deep into important issues as committed and informed citizens?

How can we use resources such as those in this collection to see if we can move our conversations and our curriculum about race into the kinds of institutional and structural work that is suggested by the researchers at Race Forward?

One of the resources here hightlights our conversations about #BlackLivesMatter On Teachers Teaching Teachers (TTT). We have been thinking about how Ferguson and the movements for racial justice impact on our classrooms and in our interactions with students and with each other. On a recent episode, Chris Rogers pointed us to Race Forward's research “because racism has levels” he wrote in a chat.

We have been studying their report Moving the Race Conversation Forward and creating learning experiences for our students in which they can do similar kinds of research and perspective-taking. This institute's work around Preventing Racial Inequity in Schools and Beyond has become an important area of inquiry for the Youth Voices/Teachers Teaching Teachers network of educators.

This is what we have been talking about on Teachers Teaching Teachers and building into our missions on Youth Voices: how to introduce Race Forward stances, protocols, and practices into our classrooms. And further, we are asking how we can use Youth Voices, Hangouts On Air, and other tools such as NowComment and Genius to have conversations across schools. Our segregated school systems too often lead to students having these conversations mainly with peers who are a lot like each other. We seek--mainly through Youth Voices--to break down some of these walls.

Resources in this collection

A former student of mine, now in education herself, posed this question on Facebook: "Teacher friends, tomorrow is the day before a vacation [Thanksgiving]. How are you addressing the [Ferguson] grand jury announcement."

I am suggesting that while the remark "English ain't relevant" may appear, on the surface, to be without substance, or maybe even crude, it actually is a remark which upon investigation raises fundamental questions about American society. To dismiss such a remark as wrongheaded is to ignore the likelihood that the makers of the remark know something about this America that is yet incomprehensible to others of us.

culturally relevant pedagogy, teaching and learning, Teaching as a political act

Yesterday was cold in Denver...really cold. My husband decided this would be a good time to go houseplanting shopping. He watched a TedTalk about how houseplants increase the amount of oxygen in buidings in Delhi. Since I wanted to spend time with my husband, I decided to simply go along for the ride.

We got to the greenhouse and were a bit dumbfounded. We have grown houseplants, but we really don't put much thought into what we buy, mostly because most of our plants have been gifts. So we decided to ask for help. After all, the staff wasn't busy because, remember, it was cold outside.

About the National Writing Project

The National Writing Project focuses the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of our nation's educators on sustained efforts to improve writing and learning for all learners. The NWP envisions a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world.